Badge in Azure

Even though Aini knew a little about Saleen and where he received his training in the past, he was still taken aback by Saleen’s background. Aini could not help but admire his parents’ foresight. The Fellets had really bet everything on Saleen.

The happiest amongst everyone must be Guya and her family. As women, even though their status in Qin was already higher compared to other empires, they would never be considered as the leader of their families, much less have the possibility of becoming Duchesses.

Initially, they supported Saleen because they saw business opportunities. Now, it seemed that aside from wealth, they would also have the opportunity to earn a hereditary Duchess position.

Saleen pondered deeply for a while. The construction of demon city was halfway done and would be completed in the next six months. Within a year, they would be able to summon about ten-thousand demons. By the time the Sregl Island mages arrived, Saleen would be able to build the first camp of the demon army.

With the demon army, Saleen’s own armies would no longer require so many mages and they would be able to stay in Metatrin City to help in construction. After one and a half years, Saleen would not have to worry about the defense of Metatrin City.

Saleen’s teacher would also be bringing along combat vessels, sailors, and swordmasters. Regardless if it was on land or sea, every possible loophole could be filled with winged skeleton and Three Kings.

By then, these noble families would no longer need to keep too many private soldiers by their side in Metatrin City.

“Everyone, Metatrin Kingdom needs to expand its territories, but we are allies with Bitter Water Prefecture. We will not attack Phoenix for the time-being. We will set our sights on Laiyin Duchy.”

“The four Dukes can have one-thousand private soldiers and lead up to thirty-thousand soldiers while the twelve Earls can have six-hundred private soldiers and lead up to ten-thousand soldiers. Every private soldier can be supported by three auxiliary soldiers. For the conventional armies that you lead, I can sell equipment to you at cost price. I will soon be establishing a joint bank with Viscountess Lex and everyone will enjoy the privilege of top-tier loans.”

Everyone heaved a sigh of relief after Saleen touched on the issue of military. Usually when a country was still in its early stages, low-level noble families would not have the power to have private soldiers or lead armies. Clearly, Saleen did not intend to restrict them in this aspect. Although the number of private soldiers had been reduced, the limit for soldiers they could lead had been increased.

Besides, Saleen has given them discounts on the purchase of equipment and they also had the option of loans. This meant that Saleen was using concrete actions to show his support for the noble families to expand their powers.

With loans, they would be able to recruit more soldiers to take over more lands. Some of these lands might even be rewarded to them.

“Now that Viscountess Lex has returned back to her country, western town’s defense was left with ten-thousand soldiers. Although the numbers are sufficient, in two months’ time, the Holy See’s army will reach the west of Metatrin City. I have already sent an army there to delay them. Nevertheless, I expect their army to be one-hundred-thousand strong by the time they arrive here. For the next two months, everyone can recruit soldiers and stop the Holy See’s army at western town.”

“My Lord, we don’t have enough money at hand!” The first Earl on Saleen’s right said.

“Western town already has ten-thousand men and can take in a maximum of forty-thousand more soldiers. All of you will only need to recruit three-thousand men each. There is a ten story magic tower there so it will help a lot for defense. Unless the Holy See army split up their forces, otherwise just hold the town. You don’t have to engage.”

Everyone thought about it carefully and realized that it was true. Western town was not big and could only hold an army of fifty-thousand. With another twenty-thousand logistics soldiers, there was no room for residents. It would be simpler to defend the town without having to care for the safety of residents. On top of that, there would be two grade-9 sorcerers guarding the magic tower that Saleen would be building so the enemy would only be able to attack from the west. It would be easy for fifty-thousand men to defend one side of the city wall that was only a mile wide.

As long as the enemy did not possess any large equipment like war puppets, there should not be too many casualties from defending western town.

Although the noble families would be spending their own money to defend western town for Saleen, this would be their first opportunity to perform meritorious service for this new kingdom. How they performed this time around would determine whether they could become noble families of even higher tiers.

When these noble families came to Metatrin City, they still had about three-hundred to five-hundred private soldiers with them. It would not be too difficult to expand this number. After the battle was over, everyone would have the chance to select the capable soldiers to become their own private soldiers.

Saleen actually wanted to let them participate in this battle partly to let these noble families start to expand their powers. Saleen could not possibly spend his own money to help them expand their armies.

Saleen easily helped the noble families settle down after explaining clearly the terms and conditions of getting loans. The twelve Earls left to prepare for recruitment of soldiers while the four Dukes stayed behind.

Guya and the rest were different from the Earls. Their families were not in trouble at all. These young men and women simply detested the old-fashioned rules that their families were still sticking to and just wanted independence. They were all wealthier than the twelve Earls and were also able to offer more men and resources.

Guya and the rest even had grand mages and zun grand swordmasters under their command. Now that they have been given titles and received new clan badges, they had officially become independent from their families. Saleen has prepared for them the titles of third-grade Dukes, which far surpassed the status of the leaders of their families.

This meant that their original families would no longer be able to accept them back. Now that they were Dukes, there was no way they could become the heads of their families anymore. If there was such a possibility in the first place, Guya and the rest would not have wanted to leave their families anyway.

Of course, the price to pay for leaving their families was high. It was worth it since they would now have the chance to build something for themselves in Metatrin City. The four major families would never resort to violence to solve such a problem.

Saleen was no longer afraid of the four major families because the amount of magic nuclei and metal supplies that Metatrin City owned could already allow him to conduct business anywhere on the Mainland. He would no longer have to give any considerations to the four major families.

Saleen also knew that while the twelve Earls’ finances were tight, Guya and the rest were very wealthy. After splitting from their families, everyone including Aini, transferred all the funds that they could utilize to Metatrin City. Saleen asked them to stay behind to discuss about investing in the fighting arena.

Everyone, including the ladies such as Guya and Irene, was extremely interested in the fighting arena.

Saleen has already completed the construction of basic foundations. The biggest portion that required investments was regarding setting up an outlet for gambling. Qin was strictly against gambling and this type of gambling that was organized by noble families only existed during the fourth dynasty. It was during the early years of the fourth dynasty.

Saleen had thought that this would be a simple issue but who knew that they could not reach a conclusion even after night came. Saleen did not wish to be authoritative about this. What he was suggesting would greatly deviate away from traditional Qin attitude towards gambling so he would need support. Fortunately, the issue of the fighting arena was settled within an afternoon. Now they were only left with gambling.

It was dinner time when Eleanor, who had been training on her own all that while, suddenly appeared and gave Saleen a solution.

What Saleen wanted was to leverage on competitions held in the fighting arena to make profits rather than losses. Eleanor said directly, “You can sell tickets just like Cloudflow Empire’s theatres. One will only need to spend a few silver coins to watch a fighting competition.”

Silver coins? Saleen was stunned for a while. The biggest arena could sit tens of thousands of people. If every seat was sold for two silver coins and the match was a sellout, they would be earning close to one-hundred-thousand silver coins, which would be equivalent to a few thousand gold coins.

Although it might seem less profitable than hunting for beasts in the sea, the sale of magic nuclei was such that the more one sold, the more the prices would drop.

Would the people of Metatrin City accept the price of two silver coins? It was probably too high! The people here worked hard and could possibly earn more than ten gold coins a year, but on a monthly basis, they would not earn more than one gold coin. It was too much to expect of them to spend one-fifth of their wealth to purchase a ticket.

Eleanor said, “The biggest arena can sit up to fifty-thousand people. If every seat is sold for two silver coins, we will earn one-hundred-thousand silver coins, which is equivalent to ten-thousand gold coins. This will be too expensive. Everyone’s ticket can be used as a chip for betting. When they purchase their tickets, they can predict the outcome of the matches. Whoever manages to guess correctly the outcomes of all the matches will win a gold coin or more.”

“Won’t we be making a loss?!” Sika did not understand the calculations involved and immediately objected.

“How can that be?” Saleen smiled. He grasped the essence of what Eleanor said immediately. This was also a standard question in the Figaro Magic Formula. When a magic sequence could produce two possible outcomes, each outcome had a fifty percent chance of occurring. This portion of the Figaro Magic Formula was also the hardest to predict and was known as Magic of Uncertainty.

On the surface, it seemed as if both the first and second choices each had a probability of fifty percent getting it right. In actual fact, the probability of getting the second choice right was not even twenty-five percent. The more times one guessed, the lower the probability of guessing the correct outcomes.

Even if Saleen did not control the outcomes of the matches, it would still be extremely difficult to correctly guess the results of all the matches. Amongst an audience of fifty-thousand, it would be a miracle if even a few hundred people won.

Aside from mages that had studied and learned the calculation formula, the average person would not understand the catch behind it.

“The two silver coins can also include a meal and drink. Most people will be attracted by the prize and will not care too much about the entrance fee,” Narnia said.

“No, I will only sell a ticket for a silver coin…No, fifty bronze coins!” Saleen quickly calculated the profits to be earned. If they followed the original plan, he would only organize matches on a weekly basis so that the people in the city would not have to spend too much. If they charged a ticket at fifty bronze coins, he could organize matches everyday and every match would be a sellout.

If every seat cost fifty bronze coins, they would earn twenty-five-million bronze coins or two-thousand gold coins a day. Half of the gold coins would be set aside as prizes in order to continue attracting the crowds.

In that case, he would be able to collect one-thousand gold coins every day. In one year, just one big fighting arena alone would earn him more than ten-thousand gold coins.

“Eleanor, your idea is brilliant!” Saleen complimented wholeheartedly.